Local...um church.

I can post this here because they sent me a postcard and so I feel obliged. This "church" is for people who have given up on church. Here is how they advertise:

"People do things they enjoy. Not enough people enjoy church. When it comes to church, we want to replace boring, predictable, and irrelevant with challenging, refreshing and authentic.

CHURCH
1. Dress up
2. Hand over some money
3. Take a nap
4. Remember: laughing and fun prohibited
5. Rock out to the organ

NOT HERE!"

So, that's how they get you in. Oddly enough, I like those things I'm not "supposed to like"(I wait to nap at home). I guess my church is not authentic because they have those things. Rock out to the organ...snort. So God doesn't want me to tithe, dress my best for Him or be reverent? I normally don't comment on such things but this church opened that door when they sent a postcard to my residence. Honestly, who would be interested in a church that resembles a Saturday night get together with friends? Shouldn't church be more than that? Doesn't God deserve our best instead of sloppy seconds? In case your interested, the site for this palace of Christendom can be found here:

Watermark Community Church

NR article on parish problems

H/T to Bettnett(and Cafeteria) for this article.
A little formality please
Sadly, I can relate to the article on NR. Of interest were these words:

So bring on the Tridentine Mass, and the new missal language, vernacular be damned. Make use of kneelers, and candles and incense, and if the service needs to be longer than an hour, let it. If it’s worthwhile, who will object? Make demands of your congregants. Give them reason to come, with sermons that don’t insult their intelligence and music that won’t make them groan. Pay musicians and singers if you must. A meaningful worship experience requires mystery and awe and beauty, all of which are conspicuously absent in too many churches today.

Bottom line, young people and families are starving for the sacred, the traditions, the identity of BEING Catholic. I think looking back, that is why even during my early years into my 'reversion" I looked forward to Lent because I got my Catholic identity back. Deep inside, I wanted to be part of something ancient and true that made its presence through all the senses. Even if it's just on Sunday, that fervor and feeling gets us through another week.
I know from teaching my autistic boys that if I want something to "stick", it needs to come in visually, through touch, sound, taste, whatever means necessary. For faith to "stick", the same could be said. Our children need this sense of history and tradition to create memories and their sense of identity, WHO THEY ARE. So I welcome all that gives our faith a salient cohesiveness. They bind us with the apostles, with the early Church fathers, the saints and Our Lord.